


clever-tongued

by TheBrokaryotes



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Body Worship, Cunnilingus, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Intimacy, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Vaginal Fingering, damn pretty sure this is my first straight thing ever, tbh its what they deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24687100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrokaryotes/pseuds/TheBrokaryotes
Summary: “Is there still fear in your heart?” Aethelflaed whispers into his hair. Aldhelm pauses, peering up at her in the same way a priest peers to the heavens, reverence only faintly undercut by lust, a darkening thunderhead in his eyes. Never before in her life has Aethelflaed so badly wanted to be caught in a storm.“For you, my Lady—always.”
Relationships: Aethelflaed Lady of Mercia/Aldhelm (The Last Kingdom)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 39





	clever-tongued

**Author's Note:**

> listen
> 
> it's what they both deserve

The evening started innocently enough—the quiet of her bedroom, a mahogany lounge lined in sheepskin, wine poured halfway to the top before rippling with the echo of colliding goblets. Aldhelm seemed weary, distracted, and Aethelflaed found she could not blame him. Who could? The burden of knowledge is a heavy one, encumbering when padded with secrets, and the man had been yoked by loyalty to Mercia through her husband for a long while. But Aldhelm is good at his job. He had always been tight-lipped and clever-tongued.

The candlelight flickers once, twice. Aethelflaed first begins to feel the hum of her alcohol running just beneath her skin, and it’s not too much. She laughs at something, spoken hushed between them, and it’s a bubble rising in her chest that bursts. Aldhelm smiles, tries to hide it by focusing his gaze to the floor between his planted feet, but Aethelflaed leans into him to pull him close, to draw him into the warmth of her small delight. She says something back, a quick retort, and his laugh mirrors hers.

And then the laughter fades into silence, into curious flicks of the eye to noses, lips, planes of cheeks. Aethelflaed never realized that gold was spun into Aldhelm’s dark hair, that his eyes held storms and his brow arched to the right, like hers. 

_I want you to kiss me._ She had not meant to say it outloud.

There’s a strangeness in the moment, like being plucked from time itself. Aldhelm is still, lips parted to reply, to act, to promise. No thought demands the action of Aethelflaed moving her hand to rest upon his, but she does so regardless, pink fingertips brushing against the hem of his blue linen sleeve and curling. It is an anchor, a touchstone, and it draws Aldhelm’s eyes away from hers for a moment, to assure himself that the words she had spoken were true.

“Lady, I cannot.”

It’s a push and pull, a calculated move which Aethelflaed can see him forming a plan around in his mind. He always thought two steps ahead, strategic and cautious. Oft she’d find herself thinking in stride, but tonight her patience was not held for games.

“Why?”

Her voice is as quiet as the flutter of her eyelashes, when her gaze falls from him to the small space between them, growing smaller with the passing seconds. She watches his eyes do the same, watches his mind struggle to keep up with the moments ticking by.

“I fear what a kiss becomes.” His hand twitches, turns over in her palm, to hold it, to run his thumb over the peaks and valleys of her knuckles. “I fear I am not worthy.”

His hand is soft on hers, his presence warm and comforting. He’d saved her life, time and time again, even when it seemed not in danger. The tears she had cried into his shoulder number too many to count. Aethelflaed has no fear.

“Then let me prove you wrong.”

She grants him no quarter, no time to think, to retreat. Her body moves forward, curving into his embrace, and her mouth finds him, even in the low light, with trained ease. His stubble scratches at the corners of her lips, the underside of her nose. He smells of pine and the wine they shared, and when she breathes in, he is all she knows.

For all his hesitation, Aldhelm does not fight, but responds with her enthusiasm, blended with his own long-suppressed desire. He runs that clever tongue along her bottom lip, lets her guide his hands to her waist as she presses herself against him. The heat at her core rises to simmer against her skin, to set them both alight at every point of contact. He seems not to mind being burned.

The heat grows, amplified by their close contact, and soon Aethelflaed is shrugging out of her dress, a red velvet affair which clings stubbornly to her body. Without a word or a pause, Aldhelm brings his deft hands to her shoulders and lets his fingers stutter across her pale skin, slipping her arms from the confines of the garment. She snatches one of his palms from her shoulder and draws it to her breast, body lurching as he molds his touch to supple skin. When she moves, upsetting their rhythm, he breaks away from their kiss, sealing his lips now to her pulse point and sucking a dark red brand against it. His lips drag, gentle and purposeful, down the length of her neck and pause to rest at her collar, kissing her freckles in the pattern of a constellation.

Despite the heat, Aethelflaed shivers, eyes shivering closed in kind, and takes a gasping breath between her lips as her fingers trail up his arms to his collar. The binds of Aldhelm’s shirt are loosed with precision, and soon she is spanning her palms across his chest with possessive desperation, nails grazing across his skin in an unspoken promise to him that by night’s end, neither one of them would go unmarked.

He hums into her shoulder, spurred by her ministrations, and in a motion as quick as thought, he reaches around her waist and draws her up into his lap. The sheepskin is soft against her knees as she braces her hands on his shoulders, locks of her hair falling against his ears when she kisses the top of his head. His arms curl around her back to pull her flush against him, and his mouth worships her heart, her breasts, until she can be silent no longer, her moan echoing about the room as she tilts her head back to let it slide from her throat.

“Is there still fear in your heart?” Aethelflaed whispers into his hair. Aldhelm pauses, peering up at her in the same way a priest peers to the heavens, reverence only faintly undercut by lust, a darkening thunderhead in his eyes. Never before in her life has Aethelflaed so badly wanted to be caught in a storm.

“For you, my Lady—always.”

And with that, he resumes, efforts redoubled; whether it is to draw more noise from her lips or for his own pleasure, Aethelflaed does not know. She does not care. Her hips cant against him when his hands wander to the soft plush of her belly, tracing the marks of childbirth that line her thighs.

“I fear what you do to me,” he whispers as she pulls his shirt over his head, hair mussed when she twines her fingers through it. He plucks at the fabric gathered at her hips before diving beneath, exploring her searing heat. “I fear what I become for you.”

His nose bumps the lobe of her ear as his fingers breach her, eased by her arousal. Air hisses through her teeth as his wrist flexes to move inside of her, accompanied not by pain but by surprise and feverish anticipation. She moves her hips in time to assure him of his actions, moaning into his neck between uncoordinated kisses.

“I fear what you could do to my heart if you realized just how much of it belongs to you.”

In a flurry, she tears his face from her nape and bruises his lips with hers, gasping against his mouth as his fingers quicken their pace. The flat of his thumb rubs against her clit, and she cries as fire ignites inside her blood, tightening fast around his fingers and rocking against them as the flames lick her from head to toe. She barely has time to let the air return to her lungs before Aldhelm is lifting her upright, careful to keep her steady.

The rest of her dress falls to her feet, and she steps backwards out of it, glued to him still as he guides her to her bed. He lays her gently down, taking a knee at the edge of it once he tugs his boots from his feet and his breeches from his legs. Aethelflaed is still awash in the glow of pleasure when she feels his hands running up her thighs, hooking them over his shoulders as he inches her closer to his face.

“My blood runs hot for you, Lady,” she hears him say, and props herself up on her elbows to peer in awe down at him. “If I could—”

“Aldhelm, _yes_ ,” she cuts him off, grabbing a fistful of his hair. She knows his intentions already, and the mere thought makes her skin jump. “Please, I cannot— _oh!_ ”

The feeling is so different than what she expected it to be. It is hot to hot, slick to slick, an alien sensation which makes her angry— _angry_ —not to have felt before tonight. It seizes her for a long moment, draws all air from her chest and thoughts from her mind as Aldhelm drags his clever tongue between her wet folds, lily soft and trembling with the residual ripples of pleasure from her previous orgasm.

Her neck cranes backward, crown of her head brushing the pillows beneath as she lets out a long groan, bucking against his mouth and twitching when his facial hair scratches at her inner thighs. Aldhelm is relentlessly delicate, mouth moving with practiced form, and if Aethelflaed did not know him better, she would think him an expert at his craft. It is not long before she is all but clay beneath him, shaped to him and pliant to every scorching touch he graces her with, and not much longer after that before she is rutting against his tongue in small, febrile movements, chasing after the fire in her gut with him as a guide.

When he hums his own pleasure against her, the lady of Mercia loses her head, stars soaring across her vision as she trembles with her second shockwave of release that night. Aldhelm waits for her to quiet, to still, before planting kisses on her thighs, her hips, her belly, her breast, finally to her lips. Her slick is heady and intoxicating on her tongue, and when it’s mixed with his taste, not the finest wine can compare.

“Do you still believe yourself unworthy?” she murmurs once he pulls away, slotting neatly between her legs. She feels his arousal rub against the wetness of her thigh and brushes up into it, eager still to continue their escapades. He gazes at her with the highest adoration, lips quirking into an easy smile.

“Lady, I have not yet begun to prove myself,” he vows, and Aethelflaed’s nostrils flare as heat does the same down her spine.

“Then you’d best start now.”

\--

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if i spelled their names wrong at any point. i am just a little fool


End file.
